The European Commission has preliminarily found Meta\'s Instagram and Facebook in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) for failing to diligently identify, assess and mitigate the risks of minors under 13 years old accessing their services.
The annoying thing is, meta already knows a bunch of its users are minors, but it refuses to act on that information. It’s like they’re waiting until they can impose universal surveillance on everyone before it bothers doing anything.
Never mind that many things (like self-harm content on Instagram) should be banned regardless of the viewer’s age, and that plenty of this regulation should be left up to parents anyway
There’s a reason why Meta is lobbying for age verification. They need it to be compliant with the law, without the accountability that goes with it.
What they need is an absolutely gigantic non-negotiable fine.
Multiple non-negotiate fines from multiple different groups in different lawsuits
The annoying thing is, meta already knows a bunch of its users are minors, but it refuses to act on that information. It’s like they’re waiting until they can impose universal surveillance on everyone before it bothers doing anything.
Never mind that many things (like self-harm content on Instagram) should be banned regardless of the viewer’s age, and that plenty of this regulation should be left up to parents anyway
I don’t think it’s just about accountability, I think it’s also about being able to charge advertisers more for verified-human eyeballs.